Back again! Thank you so much to those who have reviewed, favourited or followed, big love. Though I had initially thought of updating this once a week, I've got quite a few chapters written and a full plot outline ready - feeling quite excited so wanted to keep the story going!

Anyway, hope you enjoy!


Hermione groaned as her alarm trilled happily away on the bedside table of the central London flat she and Pansy shared. The sun was already blasting through her curtains, and her head swam as she moved to sit up. Why did she ever let Parkinson talk her into escapades like last night?

As if Hermione's thoughts had woken her (although it was almost definitely the alarm) a tousled head of inky black hair angrily surfaced from the left side of the double a heart stopping moment Hermione seemed to forget Pansy crawling into bed with her last night, and a wave of nausea hit her like a ton of bricks as a thousand male faces flickered through her mind – she couldn't have brought anyone back, surely?!

"Will you turn that wretched thing off?" Pansy grumbled, hauling her long, thick hair into a messy ponytail and easing Hermione's anxiety (although not the sickness) as she revealed herself fully. It was just her flatmate. "Trust you to have a fucking alarm on a Saturday." Pansy threw herself back under the covers as Hermione slammed down the snooze button.

She rolled back onto her back, staring up at the ceiling as Pansy's breaths began to come slower and more regularly beside her. She hadn't understood the whole best friends sharing a bed thing until she'd gotten her own place, but then again, she hadn't really had female best friends until after Hogwarts.

She'd rented the horrifically expensive apartment pretty much as soon as she'd left school (though Hermione wasn't taking any hand outs or preferential treatment when it came to her career, that didn't mean she hadn't been handsomely rewarded for her efforts in the war). At first it had just been her swanning around in the overly spacious three bedroom flat looking over one of the city's smaller parks. Hermione definitely wasn't one for extravagant wealth, but in all honesty, she hadn't really been sure what to do with her new-found wealth, especially after she shifted most of it into savings.

The flat had seemed like a good investment, and besides, she'd always envied those who could afford to live in central London. It was Ginny however who'd saved her from the empty, slightly lonely castle she'd built around herself. The ballsy redhead had simply told Hermione she couldn't possibly have that much space all to herself, and her boxes and suitcases were filling up her hallway the very next day.

Living with Ginny had been an experience which enlightened Hermione and showed her just how much she'd missed growing up when she'd decided girls were too superficial and silly to be best friends with. Her world was suddenly full of manicures, face masks in front of terrible films, too much wine on a Wednesday night just because they felt like it – she actually hadn't felt so complete in a very long time, so she had been more than happy to offer Pansy her other bedroom when the girl informed her she couldn't stand to live in one of the Parkinson properties any longer.

The only word she could now think to describe those short two years going into their twenties when the three girls had lived together was perfect. She and Ginny had been dating the boys they'd always thought they'd marry – Harry Potter and Ron Weasley – and Pansy was constantly making their lives more interesting with her one-night stands or awful dates with the many wizards who wanted her attention. Oh sure there had been fights, for one thing it actually took longer than Hermione could stand for Ron to even accept Pansy as part of their group (he still hadn't really) – Ginny too had been infuriated by this, and it led to many screaming matches followed by emotional girly talks about how they were never going to speak to another boy again. There were constant squabbles over Ginny's filthy quidditch kit left lying around or Hermione's insistence on not going out every weekend when the other two were desperate for her to join in, but through it all they remained inseparable.

But it had to end, just like all perfect things. Ginny had sat them down at the start of summer in 2001 and told them ecstatically that Harry had proposed to her and the two were going to be finding a place of their own before the wedding. Hermione could actually remember the exact date, because that was one of only five times she'd gotten so horrifically drunk she could barely remember any of her actions. Pansy had suggested they organise a girl's night to celebrate, and so had ensued the largest party Hermione had ever hosted and some of the most embarrassing things she'd ever done.

Obviously, as expected, Ginny had drifted away from them a little after that. It wasn't like she and Pansy didn't have other friends – their girls group was actually quite a brilliant one, including Luna, Lavender and the Patils to name a few – but nothing quite compared to how close the three of them had been for such a long time.

Hermione sighed as she tried to collect herself from her thoughts, sadly thinking of the many mornings she had woken up in a similar position, but with a second, dark red head snoring beside her. She supposed she should visit Ginny and James sometime soon, but though she hated to admit it, a baby definitely altered the friendship dynamic.

"You're thinking so hard I can practically hear it." Pansy mumbled, rising once again and turning to shoot Hermione a confused and irritated look. "What's going on, are you embarrassed about the whole Draco thing?"

Hermione blanched and shot up much too quickly into a sitting position, her stomach rolled, and she nearly had to hold back a wretch.

"What Draco thing?" She basically shouted, and Pansy winced at her tone.

"Will you stop with the loud noises?! It's barely even morning." Hermione couldn't help but snort – it was half past ten. "Anyway, we got talking about him again last night because you were a little riled from seeing him yesterday, you kept telling this guy you were getting on how annoyingly attractive he is – among other things." Pansy snorted, dropping her head back onto the pillow.

Hermione's mind spun with the amount of information Pansy had just uttered in one sentence, and this time she couldn't hold herself back and was up sprinting for the toilet bowl within wasn't long before Pansy was at her side, pulling her birds nest up into a bun so it was away from the splash zone and rubbing her back gently. Again, Hermione had to marvel at their friendship – she doubted Harry or Ron would have had a clue what to do in such a situation.

"Oh come now Hermione it wasn't that bad, I know you hate snogging people when we're out, but he was pretty fit I have to say. Although you might want to be careful about talking about Draco Malfoy so much to other wizards." She chuckled, and Hermione responded with another heave. God, she hated cocktails.

Eventually Hermione's stomach stopped punishing her for her antics of the previous night and she sat back against the cool porcelain, not wanting to meet Pansy's eyes and so closing her own.

"Ok. Firstly, who was this mystery wizard, and was there anyone there who saw us?" She asked slowly as Pansy passed her a glass of water. Hermione still didn't know how the bloody witch held her alcohol so well.

"Well an entire club full of people saw you shoving your tongue down his throat," Pansy snorted and then outright laughed at the murderous look her best friend shot her. "Ok, ok, but if I tell you the rest you have to promise not to freak out, you're probably not going to like it."

Hermione groaned and placed her head in her hands. She was actually never going out again after this, alcohol brought out a side in her she really didn't appreciate.

"So you ended up snogging… please don't throw up again, Theo Nott." Hermione knew Pansy had been joking but her stomach actually did roil once again at the news. She couldn't believe herself honestly.

"Oh my GOD that's ridiculous. Have I even seen him since we finished school?!" Hermione cried out and Pansy once again had to smother a laugh.

"No but I think that was actually why you went along with it, even a Hermione who'd been drinking since 1pm probably wouldn't have knowingly tongued a Slytherin."

"I didn't even know who it was?" Hermione gasped, and Pansy nodded sympathetically, after all she had definitely been there before.

"Yes, but you shouldn't worry too much, Theo's quite a good friend of mine and he's not one to make a big deal of things. Also, he's actually quite lovely - which you would know if you ever bloody came to one of their parties I invited you to." Pansy attempted to reassure her (as usual with a touch of sarcasm and bitterness), but Hermione just frowned and gestured for her to go on and recall the rest of the night."Right so, here's the bit you're really not going to like. Your actions were witnessed by pretty much the rest of the people you're starting the apprenticeship with – I guess they were out celebrating too?"

Hermione once again moaned into her hands. She really couldn't believe herself.

"Specifics Pansy, give me the names of who was there." She grumbled, and the raven-haired witch continued.

"Right so Theo, obviously, Blaise and the Greengrass sisters were out, oh and the Patils." Pansy chewed her lip before continuing. "That's really going to be a hard one to explain over brunch."

Hermione felt as though she might cry, of course, the Potter's Sunday brunch. It was their way of celebrating James' first birthday without having "a sticky, messy, shitty kids party" as Ginny had so eloquently put it. Everyone was going to be there, all of her best friends including the bloody Patils.

"Is it too much to wish I was completely and utterly dead at this moment in time?" Hermione asked weakly and Pansy smiled sadly at her.

"Oh come now Hermione, we've all done worse. Remember how you broke up with Ron on New Year's at the Burrow and then broke one of his mum's dinner plates?"

Hermione scowled darkly and pouted as Pansy grinned at the memory. God that had been a mess, Hermione remembered how terrified she'd been that Ron was going to propose all night. Things had been wrong for a long time, but he'd kept on dropping hints and she'd just freaked. The dinner plate had of course been a complete accident. What had begun as a family and close friends only soiree had really heated up before midnight, in fact come to think of it Hermione could vaguely remember Theo being present that night too.

But her memories of that party were incredibly poor, she'd ended up drinking almost an entire bottle of tequila (the foulest drink known to man, fire whiskey be damned), crashing into a china cabinet and then screaming at Ron to leave her alone. She'd managed to publically embarrass him and herself in front of God knows how many people (the Weasleys had a tendency to invite anyone and everyone to their parties), and risked their lifelong friendship in the process. She had then run upstairs to cry in someone's bedroom, but after that Hermione's mind drew a complete blank.

God she hated thinking about that drunken, teary haze of a night.

"If you're trying to cheer me up then I have to tell you its really not working." She responded darkly, and Pansy laughed once more before standing up and offering Hermione a hand.

"Well I'm not letting you mope on the bathroom floor all day. Have a shower and I'll crack out the ice cream, seeing as you woke me up so early we may as well do something productive, like watching an entire season of Friends."

Hermione rolled her eyes but couldn't help smiling. She just regretted introducing Pansy to muggle television, the girl really was obsessed.


"What on earth do you mean she talked about me?!" Draco Malfoy almost spat out his coffee as the young man opposite him continued to smirk infuriatingly over his full English. Their boy's Saturday tradition of enjoying a cooked breakfast at a local muggle joint really was starting to become a chore – Nott was just so bloody annoying.

"Something about you knocking her over at the office I believe? She certainly wasn't very happy about it." Theo replied with a shrug as Blaise grinned and nodded along.

"It made for quite an entertaining night I won't lie," Zabini interjected, the smile still twinkling in his eyes. Blaise always had been infuriatingly beautiful, his perfect dark skin and magnetising smirk. It was probably a blessing for the rest of them he was off the market.

"What were you even doing there Zabini, you're married now remember? Thought that meant you weren't allowed to have fun." Draco bit out irritably and stabbed a sausage with more venom than was really needed given the situation. He was still quite bitter that he'd decided to stay in and so much had happened – he'd been banking on an average, uninspiring night out in muggle London. "Besides, who was looking after the twins?"

"Do you know of such things known as nannies, Draco?" He asked condescendingly and took a sip of his orange juice. "Besides, Astoria and I needed some time to relax, especially seeing as with the apprenticeship starting Monday I doubt I'll be going out much at all."

Draco sneered at him but didn't bother arguing. He did actually like Zabini, they were best friends after all. And though he hated to admit it, looking after the little tykes Giovanni and Aurora was fast becoming one of his favourite past times – especially as at nearly two years old they were a lot more fun to play with than babies. It was as surprising to him as anyone else, but Draco really had a soft spot for small children. Well, his friend's children anyway.

"How is Astoria feeling about all of that? I'm assuming she knows the workload will mean less family time for you four?" Theo asked politely, looking as though he were generally interested in the Zabini family dynamic and not just trying to aggravate Draco further by avoiding their previous topic of conversation.

Both Blaise and Draco knew differently though, as one smirked and the other scowled at his question.

"Well, we've already decided that I won't be missing family dinner time as that's obviously important, speaking of how about that brunch at the Potters tomorrow? We'll be there as Gio and Aurora just love little James." Blaise continued, clearly playing along.

"Oh I suppose I'll go, what's the harm after all. It was so kind of Ginny to invite us, though we did get along rather well when she was still playing national quidditch, such a fiery temper that one."

"Enough!" Draco barked, ramming his fist into the table and causing several other diners to look over at their table. He'd had enough of their titter, and also didn't want to think about the strange obligation he'd gotten himself into the following morning. Brunch at the Potters was ludicrous as it was, with this stupid drama going on he didn't think any of them should show their faces. He could only guess he'd been invited last minute by the redheaded wench as a sign of good faith after he was put on the apprenticeships with Granger, he highly doubted Potter himself had anything to do with it. Even with their mutual friends in Theo and the Zabinis, he'd still managed to avoid a proper conversation with Harry Potter since leaving school.

Draco lowered his voice slightly before continuing; "Just fucking tell me what Granger was wittering on about when you saw her last night Theo."

"Oh he did a lot more than just see her." Blaise snorted, and Theo blushed – actually blushed. That was when Draco knew there was something a little bigger afoot than Granger prattling on about him in a nightclub to his two best friends.

"What, exactly, is he referring to?" Draco spluttered, causing Blaise to laugh and Theo to turn an even deeper shade of red.

"She was rather inebriated, and I admit I myself had probably had a little too much to drink and…"

"Did you shag her?!" Draco basically shouted in incredulity, once again leading to rather a lot of attention being turned on their table.

"What? No!" Theo barked, before realising how loud they were being and lowering his voice. "We just kissed for a little while, chatted a bit and then she and Pansy left."

"Oh come on mate at least tell him all the details," Blaise rolled his eyes and then launched into the story, much to Theo's embarrassment. "Basically she was all over him, not that our Theodore here didn't look like he was enjoying it," Blaise began with a wink.

"There were really going at it in one of those corner booths in that club we go to, you know the one with the really cheap tequila shots? You can even do them with lemon and salt they don't charge extra"

Draco practically growled and Zabini flapped a hand excusing his digression.

"Anyway, it looked like Theo was going to make a move when she just launched into this tirade about you and how annoying you were, he sort of left it after that."

"What, were you jealous Nott?" Draco sneered, feeling oddly victorious that a girl bringing up his name had soiled her chances with another bloke – never mind that it was Granger of all people.

Theo scowled and retorted; "Don't be stupid, it was more the fact that when she was telling me about you she very obviously had no clue who I was, she kept explaining what a tool you were and how you'd met – as if I didn't already know." His scowl morphed smoothly into a smirk as he folded his arms. "Besides, her ranting didn't bother me, she gets all flushed and excited when she's angry, quite grabby too actually."

Both Blaise and Draco blanched at his words, although Blaise looked weirdly impressed – Draco could hardly believe it.

What was it with those two, just because she had boobs and a nice arse, didn't mean she wasn't any less Granger. She was still a know it all, she still couldn't keep her mouth shut, and her hair was probably still just as ridiculous as it always had been – how could they have forgotten those facts?!

"Well that's just repulsive Nott, I hope you realise." Draco spat and continued angrily attacking his breakfast. Both of the other boys raised an eyebrow, almost in perfect unison as they pondered over the same thing.

"Jealous, Malfoy?" Theo murmured, causing Draco to choke on a mushroom in disbelief. "Oh come on, I know you're not wankering on about blood purity – the number of witches and muggles you've pulled since leaving Hogwarts pretty much proves that - so why are you so rattled I fancy Granger?"

Draco continued to choke on his morsel of food, pretty sure that Theo's last few comments had caused him to gasp the chunk of breakfast deeper into his windpipe. It was a lot to process, once Blaise had finished patting him on the back he decided to tackle the most shocking.

"You fancy her?!" He hissed, rubbing his chest and glaring at the crumpled napkin in front of him which housed the offending mushroom.

Theo blinked and once again smirked, Draco immediately knew he had responded all too predictably. God, he hated Theodore Nott and his over calculating little brain.

"Well yes why wouldn't I. She's beautiful, intelligent, has far from displeasing… assets and seems to be really quite forward. I like those qualities in a woman." He answered calmly. "But you obviously already know all those things so that leads me back to my initial question – are you jealous?"

Draco pushed his plate away from him, he had lost his appetite and intended to punish Nott for making him waste his breakfast.

"No I am not jealous. I simply don't understand why you wish to associate with the likes of her. Don't give me that look you know blood isn't what I'm talking about – but even you can't be dim-witted enough not to see how fucking infuriating she is." Draco ranted, spurred on by the slight grin which was appearing on Nott's lips. "She's barely anything to look at, average at best, her intelligence is cancelled out by the fact that she's just a bloody know-it-all, and along with all of that her two best friends happen to be even more annoying and ridiculous than she is!"

"Her best friends are Ginny Potter and Pansy Parkinson, two women we're all familiar with and find quite agreeable." Theo calmly responded, barely looking up from his juice.

"You know who I'm fucking talking about Nott, her ugly ex-boyfriend and Scarface." Draco spat venomously. He was annoyed with himself for rising to Theo's bait, but he couldn't seem to help it, how couldn't one of his best friends see the extremely valid points he was making? It just didn't make sense.

"You certainly didn't find her so abhorrent that New Years Eve party at the Weasley's." It was Theo's trump card, Draco could tell from the large and aggravating smirk which had plastered itself onto his friend's face once he'd said it. Blaise too looked impressed, but then nervous once he saw Draco's white knuckles clenched against the table.

"I knew you were going to try and throw that in my fucking face." Draco spoke dangerously quietly, and even Theo's smile faltered for a millisecond. "Well just so we're perfectly clear here Nott, it meant absolutely nothing, we were both drunk and barely recognised each other, and I did it to fuck Weasley off."

Despite the clear warning signs that it was time for the conversation to come to a close, Theo couldn't help but slip one last comment in as he calmly pushed his plate to the centre of the table where it met Draco's.

"Yes, I suppose all of that would be entirely believable, if you had had any more than three drinks and had bothered to tell Weasley about it at all."

With that, Draco pushed himself violently up from the table, almost flipping it in the process. He hadn't told Weasley about it for the simple fucking reason that he abhorred talking to the dolt, obviously. The flaw in his plan had unfortunately been that the red headed twat hadn't been around to see – that was all. He wasn't interested in Granger, not even physically. He was adamant that her personality overshadowed any kind of physical appeal she may have had.

"I'll leave you with the bill for this one." He said, tight lipped, before getting his jacket and exiting the small café dramatically.

"Do you actually think he's jealous?" Blaise ventured a few minutes after their hot tempered blonde friend had left. Theo shrugged and smiled at the waitress, gesturing for her to get them their bill.

"I'm not sure what I think in all honesty Blaise. All I know is that firstly, that muggle born is a force to be reckoned with and one I would certainly like to see more of." He smiled once again at the waitress and left a generous tip, passing her several muggle notes.

"And second...?" Blaise pushed as the two men got to their feet and fetched their own jackets from the coat stand.

"Secondly, I know that Draco doesn't like to share, whatever he may argue to the contrary." Theo smirked one final time, and Blaise began to wonder if they would ever grow out of these types of antics. "This will be very interesting."


Ooh what is that pesky Theo planning? How will Hermione react if they show at the Potter's brunch? And why does Malfoy care so much?! (... well that one I'm sure you can figure out ;) )

Thanks for reading this everyone, I just love writing about the Slytherins - if you're at all worried about 'glossing over' their past actions, rest assured this story is taking place 4 years after the battle, so although I'm not boring you with all the details, for the most part school grievances have been hashed out and dues have been paid! :D

Anyway, thanks again for reading my fic, a review or two would be much appreciated ;)